Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – August 27, 2012, New Orleans – Today, Southwest Airlines announcedit will increase its presence in New Orleans with a total of 114 daily flights by March 2013.

Southwest currently operates 76 flights from New Orleans. Air Tran Airways, a wholly ownedsubsidiary of Southwest, operates 8 daily flights. The total number of flights offered from NewOrleans will increase to 114 by March 2013. This 35% increase in lift over the August schedule is ahuge win for the New Orleans region. These additional flights will bring approximately 1.5 Millionadditional seats into the market annually.

Southwest will serve Newark and Key West from New Orleans and AirTran will begin servingOrlando. Each destination will have one daily non‐stop flight on the March schedule. The Februaryschedule includes increases in frequency to cities like Dallas Love, Fort Lauderdale, Nashville and St.Louis.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu stated, "This additional air service is a big win for our city. Ibelieve it shows that the demand for leisure and business travel to New Orleans is very strong.Demand is always the key in acquiring air service for a city, and this just adds to the recentconfidence shown in our airport and our region.”

Chairman of the Aviation Board, Nolan Rollins stated, "Southwest Airlines has made a seriouspledge of support to the New Orleans market with this additional air service. On behalf of the NewOrleans Aviation Board, I want to express our sincerest thanks for their vote of confidence in ourcity as a great destination.”

"We are pleased with Southwest’s decision to invest in the New Orleans market by adding thisservice,” stated Iftikhar Ahmad, Director of Aviation for Louis Armstrong New Orleans InternationalAirport. "Southwest has long been our largest air carrier and this shows their commitment to ourcommunity.”